UCL Summer School and Harry Potter

Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls, thank you one and all for once again joining me on an exciting post of the blog. Please familiarise yourself with the safety procedures: a spoiler warning will appear later for those wishing to avoid plot details for the seventh and final Harry Potter book. Thank you.

Well well, this week has been slightly exhausting! Working on the Queens Park \ UCL summer school is tiring mostly because schoolchildren are biologically incapable of keeping together when walking in public. Even my voice is sore, which I blame on shouting so much – not to discipline – but just to make sure that those boys at the back don’t get hit by an incoming truck because they were so distracted by miming kicks at the sleeping homeless man outside Euston station and his dog. Poor sleeping homeless man. Though I reserve no such sympathy for his dog as those who know me best will appreciate, hehe.

Harry Potter

Anyway, it was good, and I think the kids got a lot out of it. For the first two days I was desperately avoiding accidentally overhearing any discussion of the plot of Harry Potter, which I was successfully able to do! Finished it on Tuesday night, and henceforth follows my thoughts…

Warning! The time has come… do not read on if you haven’t finished it yet.
Essentially, I enjoyed it! Feel slightly emotional by the end really, since I read the first in the series in this very room all those years ago, and was hooked ever since. Though my feelings now are nothing compared to how I felt when Harry was walking to Voldemort’s, ready to die, betrayed by that bastard Dumbledore. Cheers JK, you were about to utterly wreck my childhood! Not by killing Harry, but by rendering dark and sinister all of those previously warm conversations between the headmaster and Harry. Anyway, this was mitigated by the end, thank goodness.

Also – I so knew Snape wouldn’t be evil, and that Dumbledore had been asking him to kill him in the sixth book – and I think most people came to the same conclusion. Snape’s ambiguous attitude toward Harry, though, was explained perfectly in the closing moments of the novel and just feels utterly and satisfyingly right.

While there is a fair bit of death in the Deathly Hallows, the body count is fairly merciful really. Yes, Fred Weasley was especially sad – not to mention Hedwig! – but I did think it was a possibility that someone like Hermione could go. In actual case, the epilogue is perhaps slightly too sweetness and light – but then nice to see, all the same, in a cheap heart-warming sort of way.

Finally, I have to admit I did feel terribly guilty when Dobby died, given I’ve always hated him sorry! I didn’t mean for him to die but y’know, house elves are irritating, aren’t they?